[Info-vax] to upgrade or not to upgrade

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Ken Fairfield wrote 2011-05-20 17:45:
> On May 20, 2:29 am, pe... at langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER)
> wrote:
>> In article<ir3nr7$ta... at online.de>, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply) writes:
>>
>>> For various reasons, my planned upgrade from 7.3-2 to 8.3 was delayed.
>>> Soon, I will have time for it, but am wondering if it is worth the
>>> trouble.  My current patches seem OK, and I have all the patches which
>>> were available up until the lockdown, both for 7.3-2 and 8.3.  Now with
>>> no hobbyist patch access and, as far as I can tell, none on the horizon,
>>> what do folks here recommend?  My choices are 7.3-2 or 8.3, at the patch
>>> level available last October.  AFAIK there are no serious problems with
>>> my current patch level.  What about 7.3-2 or 8.3 as of last October?
>>
>>> It might be the last hobbyist upgrade.  :-(
>>
>> Don't think so
>
> Why not?  Do you have some inside information?
> (You don't have to spill it here if it's a "if I told you,
> I'd have to kill you" deal... :-)
>
>>> I've still had no luck in organising some sort of hobbyist patch access,
>>> neither for free nor for a (reasonable) fee.  If anyone has any
>>> suggestions, feel free to contact me via email.
>>
>> I (still) recommend V8.4 (via V8.3 of course)
>>
>> btw: Latest OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 ECO is from Feb-2011
>> (not really, but the VMS083A_FIBRE_SCSI V10 is still not listed)
>> VMS83A_UPDATE V16 - promised for Apr-2011 - is still missing
>>
>> Latest V8.4 ECOs are from May-2011
>
> Available only to those with a support contract,
> and currently there's no path to a support contract
> for hobbyists.
>
> I'm with Phillip on this one.  I have media for V8.4,
> but no access to ECOs.  I'll stay with V8.3 until
> or unless something changes... :-(
>
>     -Ken

8.3 works just fine.
8.4 has very few new features for a hobbyist.
Such as TCPIP clustering and 3=>6 shadow members.